All Hallow's Read...Australian Horror Stories
All Hallow's Read is a Halloween tradition started by Neil Gaiman. Now in its fourth year, the idea is simply to give someone a scary book to read. So why not borrow something scary from the Library to read yourself? Here is a list of 13 (less one) scary reads written by Australian authors. Have a frightful Halloween!
**Titles sourced from the Australian Horror Writers website.
Strong language, violence and horror.
After an accident in which her mother dies, Stevie has a near-death experience, and finds herself in a room full of people – everyone she’s ever pissed off. They clutch at her, scratch and tear at her. But she finds herself drawn back to this place, again and again, determined to unlock its secrets. Which means she has to die, again and again.
And she starts to wonder whether other people see the same room… when they die.
2. Madigan Mine by Kirstyn McDermott
Obsession never dies...
When Alex meets Madigan again everything changes. His childhood sweetheart is beautiful and impulsive, but there is something wrong with her. Something dangerous.
Then she commits suicide.
Now Alex can’t get Madigan out of his head. Is it all in his mind, or is she communicating with him?
To save himself and those he loves, Alex must uncover the sinister reason why Madigan took her own life – and why she won’t lie still in her grave.
Dark, bubblegum-gothic fairy tale.
There's a dead girl in a birdcage in the woods. That's not unusual. Isola Wilde sees a lot of things other people don't. But when the girl appears at Isola's window, her every word a threat, Isola needs help.
Her real-life friends – Grape, James and new boy Edgar – make her forget for a while. And her brother-princes – magical creatures seemingly lifted from the pages of the French fairytales Isola idolises – will protect her with all the fierce love they possess.
It may not be enough. Isola needs to uncover the truth behind the dead girl's demise . . . before the ghost steals Isola's last breath.
Sisters, secrets and a seance.
Evie has a gift - a gift she's not always comfortable with. But when Alex suggests they conduct a séance, Evie reluctantly agrees. The letters on the board start spelling out one name - C-A-Z - over and over, and Evie knows she's been contacted again. A cryptic message with nine letters leads Evie to a family where two sisters, one living, one dead, share a dark secret that must be revealed.
But is Evie strong enough to solve the mystery and reveal the truth in time to release both girls?
Supernatural, post-apocalyptic, detective story.
In the near-future murder is still the same. Its who’s watching that’s different.
The worldwide aftershock of what becomes known as "Gray Wednesday" is immediate and catastrophic, leaving governments barely functioning and economies devastated. Hollow-eyed apparitions appear, haunting their loved ones and others. But some things never change. When Detective Mariani discovers the grisly remains of an anonymous murder victim in the city sewage system, his investigation will pit him against a corrupt police department and a murky cabal conspiring for power in the new world order. Then there is the matter of the dead boy who haunts his every moment. . . .
6. Slights by Kaaron Warren
Dark, depressing and deeply disturbing.
After an accident in which her mother dies, she has a near-death experience, and finds herself in a room full of people – everyone she’s ever pissed off. They clutch at her, scratch and tear at her. But she finds herself drawn back to this place, again and again, determined to unlock its secrets. Which means she has to die, again and again.
And she starts to wonder whether other people see the same room… when they die.
Slights is a deeply intense, disturbing read. Death is not the end, but this is not comforting, heartwarming or safe. The misery memoir craze of the last few years has overshadowed horror fiction’s impact with (allegedly) real-life experiences. Now it’s time for horror and fantasy fiction to fight back.
7. The corpse rat king by Lee Battersby
Macabre, grotesque and darkly humorous.
Marius don Hellespont and his apprentice, Gerd, are professional looters of battlefields. When they stumble upon the corpse of the King of Scorby and Gerd is killed, Marius is mistaken for the monarch by one of the dead soldiers and is transported down to the Kingdom of the Dead.
Just like the living citizens, the dead need a King — after all, the King is God’s representative, and someone needs to remind God where they are.
And so it comes to pass that Marius is banished to the surface with one message: if he wants to recover his life he must find the dead a King. Which he fully intends to do. Just as soon as he stops running away.
8. Red queen by Honey Brown
Two brothers, a woman and a virus.
DEEP IN THE Australian bush, Shannon Scott is holed up in a cabin with his brother, Rohan, waiting out the catastrophic effects of worldwide disease and a breakdown of global economies. After months of isolation, Shannon imagines there's nothing he doesn't know about his older brother, or himself – until a mysterious woman slips under their late-night watch and past their loaded guns.
Denny Cassidy is beautiful and a survivor. Her inclusion into cabin life brings about the need for a new set of rules. Soon the brothers begin to look to her as a source of comfort, hope and intimacy . . . Or is her warmth just a trap? Could she actually be a cold tactician, a woman with a deadly agenda?
9. Death most definite by Trent Jamieson
Steve knew something was wrong as soon as he saw the dead girl in the Wintergarden food court. Nothing new, he saw dead people all the time, but this one was about to save his life...Steve is a necromancer in the family firm, tasked with easing spirits from this dimension to the next after death.
10.The Asylum by John Harwood
Confused and disoriented, Georgina Ferrars awakens in a small room in Tregannon House, a private asylum in a remote corner of England. She has no memory of the past few weeks. The doctor, Maynard Straker, tells her that she admitted herself under the name Lucy Ashton the day before, then suffered a seizure. When she insists he has mistaken her for someone else, Dr. Straker sends a telegram to her uncle, who replies that Georgina Ferrars is at home with him in London: “Your patient must be an imposter.” Suddenly her voluntary confinement becomes involuntary. Who is the woman in her uncle’s house? And what has become of her two most precious possessions, a dragonfly pin left to her by her mother and a writing case containing her journal, the only record of those missing weeks? Georgina’s perilous quest to free herself takes us from a cliffside cottage on the Isle of Wight to the secret passages of Tregannon House and into a web of hidden family ties on which her survival depends. Another delicious read from the author praised by Ruth Rendell as having “a gift for creating suspense, apparently effortlessly, as if it belongs in the nature of fiction.
11. Salvage by Jason Nahrung
Seeking to salvage their foundering marriage, Melanie and Richard retreat to an isolated beach house on a remote Queensland island. Intrigued by a chance encounter with a stranger, Melanie begins to drift away from her husband and towards Helena, only to discover that Helena has her own demons, ageless and steeped in blood.
12. Ghostlines by Nick Gadd
Ghostlines centres on Philip Trudeau, a once-respected investigative journalist who has stepped on the wrong toes. With his personal life and health deteriorating around him, Philip is consigned to a suburban newspaper where he writes filler local news articles to be slotted in among the real estate and restaurant advertisements. Sent to cover what appears to be a tragic yet routine death at a level crossing, Philip is drawn into a multilayered mystery that involves art theft, political intrigue, and business corruption.
13.??? What scary novel written by an Australian author would you add to this list to make it lucky 13? Tell us about it in the comments.
